


Puss in Boots

by Belsmomaus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family, after the war, kind of PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-06
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-06 09:30:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3129593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Belsmomaus/pseuds/Belsmomaus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco doesn't want his son to grow up like he himself did. He wants a different life for his little boy.<br/>And Scorpius? He wants to be like his dad.<br/>It's only a matter of time until those two ideas collide!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puss in Boots

**Author's Note:**

> Edit: finally changed the name from Scorpio to Scorpius. Sorry for that little mistake.
> 
> After re-watching 'The Deathly Hollows' a few days ago, the Malfoy's wouldn't leave me in peace, so I had to write about them.  
> This is what came to mind :-)
> 
> I'll always find it hard to portray kids. Either they seem too childish or too wise for their age. So I left Scorpius' age out more or less. In my imagination Scorpius is around seven to eight years old, but you can place him elsewhere on the age scale, as long as he's younger than eleven ;-)
> 
> Also a big THANK YOU to PadBlack for test-reading this story! :D

**_ Puss in Boots _ **

 

 

„Daddy! Daddy, look! Now I’m just like you!“

A smile spread over Draco’s face at the enthusiastic words of his son. The older he got and the more he looked like a miniature version of Draco, the more he tried to be exactly like his father. To walk like him, behave like him, speak like him. His enthusiasm and his sometimes ludicrous ideas of how to achieve even more similarity always made his mother smile and swell his own heart with love and pride.

And it gave him even more reason to be a decent role model.

Draco was currently in the study, facing the bookshelf. He’d been looking for a rare book one of his colleagues had been talking about the other day. He was sure he had it somewhere, but with little Scorpius having one of his ideas he was happy to continue his search later.

“Is that so?” he asked playfully and took a small sip of the cup of Earl Grey in his hands before he turned around.

His eyes searched for his little boy’s big grin, but instead his gaze fell upon the dark mark.

There, on the pale skin of his Scorpius’s arm.

The dark mark.

His heart beat so fast and heavy against his ribs that he suddenly had trouble breathing. This wasn’t possible, this just wasn’t possible.

A sharp clashing sound ripped him out of his stupor. Puzzled, he followed the sound only to find the shards of his cup at his feat. The rest of the brown liquid splashed over his shoes or was slowly being soaked up by the nearby carpet.

“Draco? Is everything alright?” He heard his wife shouting from the stairs. Her footsteps grew louder and seconds later she stood in the doorway, a few steps behind their son.

But he had no eyes for her. He could only stare at his son’s arm.

At the dark mark.

Of course it wasn’t the dark mark.

It was only a drawing. A rough sketch in ink, drawn by a child. It bore only a mild similarity to the real thing.

His eyes travelled along the pale and skinny arm, over the pulled up sleeve to the pale face with the neatly combed white blond hair. The former grin frozen to a grimace of surprise and shock and the big grey eyes blinking in growing uneasiness.

He closed his eyes, his heart still pounding like crazy. He took a deep breath, trying to ease his body and mind. His voice just barely obeyed him, sounded unusually hoarse, but it was calm and quiet.

“Wash that off, Scorpius. Now!”

“But… but Dad, you also have…”

And suddenly something snapped in him.

His eyes snapped open and fixed on the boy in front of him.

“I said: SCRUB IT OFF! RIGHT NOW!”

His churning mind only barely noticed the tears welling up in his boy’s uncomprehending eyes or the shocked face of his wife. Never before had he screamed at any of them.

He needed air. He couldn’t breathe!

With hasty steps he left. He not only left the study through the living room, he all out fled. Only when he shut the patio door behind him, did he stop. With one hand against the wall for support he leaned heavily against it; his breathing and his heartbeat tangled in a fight over the faster and shallower pattern. Wailing cries from inside the house could be heard.

He chose to ignore them. He HAD to ignore them, if he didn’t want to sink to the ground, curl up and cry himself.

On wobbly legs he crossed the distance over the patio and sank down on the upper of two steps that led down to the modest little garden behind their house.

He hid his face away in his hands. And for the first time since spotting that horrendous THING on his son he realized that he was shaking all over.

 

She finally found him on the patio, hunched over and facing the garden.

With a deep breath she tried to steel herself, tried to bolster herself up to face her husband. She brushed her shirt down – a nervous habit – and opened the door.

“Draco?”

He was sitting on the steps, his face in his hands. He didn’t acknowledge her in any way. A troubled sigh escaped her lips, yet she crossed the distance between them and sat down next to him. Carefully she laid her hand on his shoulder, feeling him trembling beneath her fingers.

Startled by her touch he cringed. His hands dropped and only when he looked at her did relief replace the fright in his eyes.

“Hey,” she offered with a soft smile.

It alarmed her to see him like this. So scared and insecure and ashamed with himself.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to – I just – Merlin! I just couldn’t bear to see it there, on his skin. On my SON. I would never – I’d never want him to –”

Astoria bit her lip. He couldn’t find the right words, but she understood. She understood his terror; she wouldn’t dare think anything like it herself. Yet for her it was more abstract than for him; in the end only unmarked skin adorned her forearms.

Gently she laid her hand on one of his, closed it around it and just held it.

“I know, darling, I know. It’s over. That time is gone. Life has changed; _your_ life has changed. And I know from the bottom of my heart that you’d do anything to keep a life like that as far away from our son as possible. You are not your father, Draco.”

He exhaled shakily and let his head sink onto his chest. His fine hair slipped from behind his ear and fell like a curtain, a short one, but long enough to block off her view of his eyes.

“Why…” he didn’t finish.

Slowly she let go of his hand. She lifted her own to stroke his hair back. With a soft touch she pressed her fingers to his chin and turned his face towards her.

She smiled at him. Astoria wasn’t sure, what exactly he’d meant with his “why”, but she opted for the obvious one.

“Because Scorpius loves you. He adores you, more than anyone else in this world. You’re his father, his hero. He wants to be like you.”

“I am no hero,” he said vehemently.

“Yes, you are, Draco!” She replied with fervour.

“Potter is the hero. I’m nothing like him.”

“Maybe,” the hand on his shoulder squeezed reassuringly and she looked deep into his eyes, “but do you really think his way of acting is the only kind of heroics that exist? You were in the middle of this whole mess, dragged into it from birth, and yet you decided to not act on it. You didn’t want to kill anyone and you didn’t, even though you knew that decision could end badly for you and your family.”

His gaze darkened and his lips parted, he wanted to say something, but she shushed him quickly. This was her turn to talk.

“You didn’t tell anyone that the prisoner in your house was Potter although you knew it. It might seem not much to you, but you did what you could. You gave him the chance to continue his quest. But that is not what makes you a hero, at least not _my_ hero.

Draco, you stood up for what you believed. You turned your back on your father’s doctrine and made your own mind. You stood up for _us_. And most of all you stood up for our boy. You won’t let your father poison him with his theories of what’s right and what’s wrong. You give Scorpius the chance to live a different live. A life free of prejudice and darkness.”

Astoria saw the scepticism and bewilderment in his grey eyes. They almost never talked about these things; maybe he had never looked at his behaviour like that.

She smiled her loving smile at him. The one that was only reserved for him.

“Look around you, Draco!”

She let go of his face and gestured towards the gardens to their left and right, to the houses on the other side of the street. And his gaze followed her movements, understanding dawning in his grey orbs.

“Look at it! We live in a village, where wizards live among Muggles. We’re direct neighbours with purebloods and halfbloods alike. Scorpius has friends amongst their children. He doesn’t care about this stuff, as long as the kids are fun to be around. He even gets to play with some Muggle kids on the playground around the corner. And that’s all because of you! _You_ made that possible. And I know that it’s not easy for you, to fight against the prejudices you’ve learned from childhood, to live amongst halfbloods and Muggleborn. But you do it for Scorpius. To enable him to lead a different life than yours. That alone makes me very proud of you, Draco!”

“You really are?”

He seemed baffled when he looked at her.

“Of course, silly!” She bumped her shoulder playfully against his before she leaned against him.

Draco sighed, partly relieved, partly something else. He leaned his head to the side until it rested on her shoulder.

“I’m afraid,” he whispered.

Astoria said nothing, feeling that he wasn’t done yet.

“I’m afraid, that someday he’ll find out. That one of our neighbours lets something slip, on accident or on purpose. Or that their children pick up something from their parents and rag him about it. Or that the kids at Hogwarts will bother him. About the meaning of the mark, about what I was, about what role his family had played in that war. Asti, I’m so afraid to lose him.”

She did the only thing she could do. She wrapped her arm around him and held him close. Those fears he was talking of weren’t new to her.

“I know. Me too.”

Astoria closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, inhaling the spicy scent of her husband. She nestled her nose deeper into his hair and kissed his head.

“We won’t be able to prevent him from hearing stories about us, about our role in the war. True ones as well as false ones. But there’re some things we _can_ do!

“Scorpius is a good boy, he’ll show them that he isn’t like his parents. And we can make sure that when it comes to that that he’s a strong boy, strong of character, so that he will be able to take such talk and grow with it. I’d also prefer to keep him out of harm’s way, but we can’t change our past. So maybe it’s better to tell him some of it so that he won’t get caught off-guard later.”

Draco took a deep and shuddering breath before he came out of his wife’s embrace. He was still very pale. Insecurity whirled in his eyes.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “We can’t protect him forever.”

“But he’s so young.”

“I’m not saying we should tell him everything right now. He _is_ still a young boy after all.”

He bit his lip, gnawed on it to stall for time. “Where is he now?”

“In his room. He’s pretty upset. He doesn’t understand, Draco.”

Clearly ashamed of himself he turned away from her and rubbed his face with his hands as if to get rid of his shame by kneading it out of his flesh.

“I’m a terrible father,” he breathed.

“Yes, of course,” she replied, sarcasm dripping from her voice. “I guess, every terrible father spends hours playing with his son or takes him on broomstick-rides. Or teaches him how to write or lets himself get taught all about TV’s from his son after another visit at his halfblood friend’s. Or sits with his sick son the whole night to make sure he’s alright. Or reads a bedtime story, every night, even if it’s from the Muggle book his son loves so much. You’re quite a clever man, Draco Malfoy, but sometimes your stupidity astounds me.”

He let his hands drop and frowned at her.

Astoria shook her head, laughing. “You’re a wonderful father, silly! And now go and talk to your son.”

Finally the beginning of a smile touched his lips.

“I really don’t know how I deserve you.”

He leaned over and kissed her on her lips.

“I love you, Asti!”

 

He knocked, but he didn’t get an answer.

“Scorpius? Can I come in?”

It took a little while until he heard a subdued “okay”.

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. His hands were unusually sweaty but he pinned that on his nerves.

The room around him was as untidy as ever. Books and different toys lay around on the ground, his sheets were rumpled and the bedcover pushed to the lowest end of the bed, part of it pooled already on the floor. The blond head of his son was nowhere in sight.

With a feeling of where to find him he stepped around the bed. There, in the corner between his bed, the wall and a seldom used cupboard Scorpius had hung up a blanket, so that it formed a small cave, a hidey-hole and a safe haven. He used it with his friends for their adventures but he also crawled in there when he was sad or unhappy.

And now he hid in there because of him.

With a sigh he sat down next to the cave and leaned against the bed, still thinking about how to begin. But his little boy surprised him by taking the lead.

“It’s gone. Mummy made it go away with magic.” The voice coming from behind the blanket sounded rueful and anxious.

He’d never wanted for his boy to be afraid of him. Not ever!

“That – that’s good.” He screwed up his eyes, grimacing. He really wasn’t good at this kind of stuff.

“Are you still mad?”

That was his wakening call. _You can do better, Draco!_

“No, of course not, Scorpius! I’m not mad at you. I never was.”

The blanket started to move around the cave entrance. It was pushed aside until a small hand and a pale face were revealed. A pale face with tear tracks visible on his cheeks and puffy, red eyes. This was all his fault.

“But you were so angry,” the boy objected.

Draco shook his head. “That wasn’t anger, my son. You startled me and… to be honest, you gave me quite a fright. But nevertheless, I shouldn’t have screamed at you. And I’m sorry for that!”

Throughout his talk he could watch all kinds of expressions of bewilderment and confusion on his son’s face. If the situation wouldn’t have been so strained he’d maybe have thought it funny.

In the end, curiosity got the better of Scorpius and he crawled out of his cave on all fours until he kneeled next to his father.

“But Daddy, you’re never scared.”

Draco smiled. “Oh Scorpius, there are a lot of things that scare me. One of them is seeing you with that thing on your arm.”

The frown on the little boy’s brow got even deeper. Although he resembled Draco in looks his demeanour was more like his mother’s. His mother always frowned like that when she was either very, very deep in thought or when she was highly sceptical of something he’d said – or done.

“But it’s just a picture. And you’ve got it, too,” he said defiantly, then added in an abashed mumble, “I just wanted to be like you, Daddy.”

“Come here!” Draco held out his hand for his son and closed it around him when he cuddled at his side. “It’s not _just_ a picture and… how do you know I’ve got one anyway?”

“Um,” he hemmed and hawed. “Well, I… I woke up and I wanted to slip into your bed. I stood there and wanted to wake you, but then I saw this thing on your arm. The lines were faint but I could see them clearly in the moonlight. I had to look at it. I’ve never seen it before, I’ve never seen anything like it before,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You sneaky little rascal!” Draco laughed and ruffled Scorpius’s hair. It had been quite a mess anyway since his time in his cave.

The boy was caught off-guard, but he recovered quickly and laughed with his father, happy that he really wasn’t mad at him.

After a while Draco sobered up again. He grabbed the hem of his left sleeve, hesitated for a moment, then he the dark material up to his elbow.

“What…” Scorpius stammered, baffled.

His voice betrayed his seriousness when he spoke. “I want you to look at it again, Scorpius. I know it’s faint, but look at it very closely and tell me what you see.”

And Scorpius did. He bowed over Draco’s body to get a closer look at his left arm, raised his own hand to touch it yet pulled it back. With a questioning look he asked for permission and Draco nodded. Even though it was hard on him. He had to concentrate on even breaths. It wasn’t easy for him to show his son his mark of shame, to let him touch this manifestation of evil. But Astoria was right: they couldn’t keep him out of the loop forever.

“What do you see?” He repeated his question.

Small fingers traced the faded lines on his arm, a soft and careful touch full of childish curiosity yet burning on his soul.

“There’s a skull. It – it kind of stares at you. And there’s this long and thin snake coming out of its mouth.”

Draco nodded barely perceptible. This description in his son’s high and innocent voice sent shivers down his spine. “Does it look nice to you? Or friendly?”

Scorpius sat back and looked up at him. He frowned. “No, actually the skull looks kind of creepy. And it looks as if it was vomiting that snake. That’s pretty gross.”

Vomiting the snake, that even educed a smile from him. But this was serious, so he sobered up quickly and faced his son.

“That’s right. And there’s a reason for that. It’s – well, there was a war a few years before you were born. A big one. Practically a fight of good versus evil like in those fairytales you like so much. Have you ever heard of it?”

It was meant as a rhetorical question, a small breather for him to gather his courage to actually do this. He knew neither Astoria nor himself had ever told him about it and they had forbidden their parents of ever mentioning it, yet his son surprised him by nodding and answering.

“Josie told me once that her parents had told her to beware of me. She said they’d mentioned something about a war but she wasn’t listening anymore. She thought it stupid that they thought I would hurt her somehow.”

Draco closed his eyes. So it had already begun without them noticing. Josie was the daughter of a wizard and a witch who’d both lost someone during the war. He’d always wondered that they let her play with his son, but maybe they didn’t and their daughter sneaked away every time to meet Scorpius. But that was a topic to think about another time.

“Yes, that would be the war I’m talking about. You see, there was this really evil wizard who thought that only purebloods were true wizards and worthy of doing magic.”

“What’s a pureblood?”

A proud smile played over his lips. Nobody would believe this: Draco Malfoy’s son, hardly old enough for his first flying lessons, had no idea what the word “pureblood” meant!

“It means someone whose parents are also wizards, and their parents before and so on. If only one parent was a wizard and the other one was a Muggle he called them “halfblood”. He didn’t like them, but Muggle-borns he hated the most. He wanted to destroy them all and rule over the wizarding world.”

“But – but that’s stupid!”

“I know. You’re totally right. There were many people who fought against this wizard, especially the former headmaster of Hogwarts, Albus Dumbledore, and a boy from my year at school, Harry Potter.

“I was part of that war, too, Scorpius. As were my parents. But we weren’t fighting on the good side.”

His son cringed away from him, gasping, in shock or disbelief, he didn’t know, maybe both. The boy looked at him with big unbelieving eyes. “But…”

“The evil wizard, his name was,” he hesitated. He’d never called him by his name, never, but he was dead and it was stupid to be afraid of a name. “His name was – Lord Voldemort. He gave those who followed him this mark,” he nodded at his arm, “as a sign. And as a way to control them. I grew up into this world. My parents had been working for him since before I was born and I was supposed to follow them. When I realised that he was the wrong choice, that he was cruel beyond measure, it was too late for me. My parents also realised that he didn’t care for any of us. Not even one bit. But it was too late for them, too. We were stuck with him. And we were afraid.

“But after I realised my mistake I did what I could to make up for it. And in the end, I betrayed him. As did my parents. It wasn’t much, only small things, but we defied him anyways. I didn’t kill for him when he wanted me to, my mother and I lied to him and my father even begged him to call off the last battle. It wasn’t much, but in the end it gave Potter more time to destroy him and end this war.

“And that’s the reason I couldn’t bear to see this mark on your arm. It’s a sign of pure evil and you are the most lovely and innocent and wonderful person I know. I would do anything to keep you away from such evil. To keep you safe. Anything, you hear me.”

Scorpius sat still, nodding slightly, yet his vacant eyes made it clear that his thoughts were miles away. He still kept his distance of him, but Draco couldn’t blame him for it.

“So – you were one of the bad guys,” his son stated matter-of-factly. “What about Mum?”

“She hadn’t been on any side, really. She’d just tried to keep her sister safe, your aunt Daphne.”

Silence settled in the room. An uneasy silence, at least for Draco. It was too heavy, too intense for a colourful and messy child’s room. Scorpius was thinking, if nothing else than his deep frown and serious expression gave him away.

He kept quiet. It wasn’t easy, but he had said everything there was to say for the moment. It was up to Scorpius now. He wouldn’t hold it against him if he’d hate him now, even if it would break his heart.

“Then – Is that why Josie’s parents don’t want her to play with me?”

Draco nodded. “They know about me. Most people in the wizarding world do. Some of them are angry with me, others – like Josie’s parents – are afraid of me.”

Scorpius vigorously shook his head. “No, no, no. That’s wrong. You made a mistake, you were sorry and you helped them, you said so. That makes you one of the good guys, Dad. Don’t they realise that?”

Now it was Draco’s turn to be stunned by this talk. He couldn’t speak, couldn’t even process what all of this meant. He could just stare at his son, his precious little boy, with his heart at the right place. Disbelief tied his tongue, but pride and love made his heart swell.

Scorpius turned around, his face so full of life again, bursting with ideas and eager to share them. He was hopping up and down and crouched closer to him. No trace of contempt or fear in his behaviour. Full of enthusiasm he gestured wildly with his hands while he tried to convey his ideas to him.

“It’s so clear, Daddy. Don’t they see it? It’s just like with the puss in boots. It’s all the same, it’s…”

He had to interrupt him there because he had no idea anymore what his boy was talking about. And where did he pick up such colourful words he should have no idea about at his age? “Puss, what?”

His interruption didn’t slow down Scorpius’s eagerness one bit. “The puss in boots. The cat, from Shrek.”

He couldn’t follow, though at least he was relieved that “puss” obviously referred to a cat and not a certain part of female anatomy. His son seemed to realise his confusion as well.

“Oh, of course, you don’t know. It’s a movie, we watched it at Danny’s. On the TV I told you about. It’s about this fairytale land and there’s this ogre, only he’s the good guy. And the king is kind of bad, well, not really, but… Anyway, he orders the puss in boots to kill the ogre, but the puss can’t do it and he’s very ashamed of himself. So from then on he helps the ogre defeat the bad guy. That’s exactly like you, Dad!”

“Is it?” Draco was a bit overwhelmed with all this information and his sons suddenly changed demeanour.

Scorpius nodded animatedly. Then he jumped forward and crushed him in a full-body hug, cuddling his face in the crook of his neck.

“And you know what?”

Draco shook his head, still dumbfounded, but overjoyed to hold his son again, to see him happy and energetic again instead of gloomy and in tears. Maybe this revelation hadn’t been so bad after all.

“What?”

Scorpius looked up at him, his grey eyes shining with delight.

“The puss in boots is the coolest of them all!”

 

End

**Author's Note:**

> Did you like it? Did you not like it?  
> Feel free to leave kudos or a comment! :-)


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